In many business applications there are needs to perform network-based data copy operations, such as recurring copying of a source database to a target database in an object-relational database management environment or the like.
Current copying platforms are somewhat limited in terms of the functionality provided. Many of the current copying platforms merely override all of the currently existing data with the data being copied; resulting in the target database having an exact replica of the source database. Thus, in such copying platforms, the user is not provided the option of changing database structure to modify/filter data from the copy process, exclude tables or the like. Other copying platforms require the table formats to be identical in order perform copying, such that, any change in quantity of columns will prohibit copying.
Additionally, many current copying platforms do not provide for the intelligence required to decipher copying constraints; such as identifying source structure and target structure; matching table-to-table, column-to-column, row-to-row (e.g., hierarchical data) and the like; ordering the copying of tables to take into account table dependencies and the like. Moreover, such current copying platforms typically require heightened account privileges, such as Database Administrator (DBA) or extended Data Definition Language (DDL) in order to manually perform the configuration operations and custom programming complexity needed to overcome copying constraints.
In addition, current copying platforms are limited in their ability to control the performance (i.e., speed) of the copy operation. Such platforms fail to take into account other concurrent database users that may be impacted by the data copy function, network latency, network configuration and/or data base size in determining optimal performance requirements for the data copy job at hand.
Therefore, a need exists to develop systems, methods and the like that provide for high performance data copy capabilities between source and target data schemas in an object-relational database environment. In this regard, the desired data copy utility should be tunable, in terms of copying speed, to the specific copying environment; taking into account such factors as network configuration, network latency, database size and the like. Moreover, the desired data copy utility should be highly configurable and intelligent such that it allows for structural changes in the data being copied (i.e., more than just copying of exact replicas) and is able to automatically identify source and target structure and match data table-to-table, column-to-column, row-to-row, and the like. Additionally, the desired copy utility should operate under lower level account privileges that allow users to manage data within existing structures, without having to require the data copy process occur under higher level privileges, which would be required if customer programming and/or changes to the structure of the databases were required.